Publicity Stunts

Leading scholars and respected researchers are raising their voices against the so-called revelations of James Cameron of the Tomb of Jesus and his family. They are calling it a shameless publicity stunt with no real basis in fact.

Leading archaeologists in Israel and the United States yesterday denounced the purported discovery of the tomb of Jesus as a publicity stunt.

Scorn for the Discovery Channel's claim to have found the burial place of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and — most explosively — their possible son came not just from Christian scholars but also from Jewish and secular experts who said their judgments were unaffected by any desire to uphold Christian orthodoxy.

"I'm not a Christian. I'm not a believer. I don't have a dog in this fight," said William G. Dever, who has been excavating ancient sites in Israel for 50 years and is widely considered the dean of biblical archaeology among U.S. scholars. "I just think it's a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated."

The Discovery Channel held a news conference in New York on Monday to unveil a TV documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," and a companion book about a tomb that was unearthed during construction of an apartment building in the Talpiyot neighborhood of Jerusalem in 1980.

James Cameron, the filmmaker who explored the wreck of the Titanic and directed an Oscar-winning feature film based on its sinking, is executive producer of the documentary. Its claims are based on six ossuaries, or stone boxes for holding human bones, found in the tomb.

There is, as I have said before, zero proof of anything other than the discovery of several boxes bearing extremely common names from that period. All of the rest is sheer speculation dressed up with impressive-sounding but ultimately worthless science. They tout DNA evidence. But of what? They have no idea of anything other than a family was related to one another. That's a surprise. That doesn't prove who the family really was. The only people who are going to believe this nonsense are the ones who already buy into an anti-Christian mindset. There is a heck of a lot more agenda than truth in this "documentary."